Full motion video (FMV) computer games had arguably reached their peak by 1996, the year Steven Spielberg’s Director’s Chair was made available on Windows and Mac computers. In a genre primarily defined by trash like Night Trap, The 7th Guest, and Sega CD’s Sewer Shark, the game added a touch of elegance and prestige to the market, with Spielberg himself addressing players who are tasked with making their own movie from raw footage. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a hit, which is probably why you’ve never seen Quentin Tarantino’s batty performance in the thing.
Sure, Tarantino has appeared in most of his own movies, as well as flicks like Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, Spike Lee’s Girl 6, and, um, Golden Girls, but none of those allowed him to indulge his motormouth like the above sequence. In it, he’s being ushered to a prison cell by some guards and his elderly mother when he tries to escape. A tense standoff ensues, during which Tarantino rambles incoherently. “Maybe you wanna die! Maybe you like to die! And maybe he,” he says, turning his gun to the guard he’s holding hostage, “doesn’t!” It’s, well, a bit much, and proof that even directors need directors sometimes.
He’s currently courting an A-list cast—Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Leonardo DiCaprio—for his forthcoming, 1969-set penultimate film, and here’s hoping he leaves the acting to them.